After searching around for trails that looked like they may head to the summit I found what was most likely an animal trail. It went straight up the large scree gully on the west slope. I stuck to the larger rocks as much as possible and made the summit in good time.

Climbed with Dad the first time, Aaron and Luke the second time. Got wet both times. Descended in the dark and the rain the first time, after wasting precious time off route. Encoutered the buzzing of electricity in the air near the summit, following hail on Harvard.

Columbia is one of the easier of the Sawatch, and in many respects one of the most rewarding. I climbed it by myself, on a beautiful day, and was quite taken with the terrain gradually unfolding during the trek upward. For some reason, maybe the gentle tundra leading up to the summit, maybe the lack of any kind of "extreme" steepness on the route, or possibly just the nice weather, the word that kept running through my mind then, and--years later--now, is "gentle." I think Columbia a quite personable, gentle mountain. (Beautiful view of Harvard, too, and--if one so chooses--the traverse between.) On this almost perfect day Columbia combined all the elements to offer one of the best of reasons we go into the mountains. I like it's personality!

Then, a unique thing happened on the way down: there was a pack of coyotes in the brush on the other side of the canyon, and when they all started yapping and howling at once, the noise by itself would have been impressive, but that, coupled with the echoing across the canyon, gave an impression of a substantial number of the critters on the loose. Never saw hide nor hair of even a single coyote, but their caterwauling and carrying on gave me goose bumps, it did--just the mountains and the sound of animals gleefully doing their thing. A very nice day!

Climbed Harvard and decided the connecting ridge looked unpleasant to traverse solo, so I decided to descend into the Three Elk Creek drainage. This made for a long day (7000+ vertical feet) - bring lots of water.

Alan Ellis, had an idea of having the first annual SP campout at the Twin Lakes CG. I decided to go and nine of the Sp members went to it including me. It was a lot of fun and I met some excellent people. The group was going to hike Elbert and Massive during the event, but I have already done both of them and passed on Elbert for Columbia and La Plata for Massive. I attempted this peak last year and didn’t make it due to my dog, Amanda. So I knew the route and the steepness involved on getting to the top. After hiking up the very steep 1,800 foot slope I reached the ridge at 13,600 feet. From here it was a fun ridge walk to the summit. Columbia has surprisingly good views from its summit, some of the best of the Sawatch Range, although I never want to do it again from this route.

I have trouble saying I made this summits as I neared the final 20 feet a lightining bolt cracked to the west. I ran downhill with my dog Sopris. I don't know if I can take credit fo summiting. I was aweful close. Whatever the case I will probably go back to linger where I had previously ran away.

A perfect fall day. I don't remeber the loose talus that other log entries discuss. Seems to me like it was mostly a nice tundra walk, with many rocks to step on, leave no trace. But don't rely on my memory! We did not do Harvard that day.

Ugh!! Climbed this in conjunction with Harvard the "Hard Way". Left N. Cottonwood TH at 3:30am. Due to the weather I did not do the traverse after Harvard, instead I returned to 11600ft in Horn Fork and climbed Columbia's West Slopes. This added over 3 miles and 1100ft to the normal link-up. I thought is would be fun to continue straight up which was a big mistake. I found myself and rotten 3rd and 4th class rock near the ridge. Winds were gusting to 60mph making the ridge traverse to the summit tough. Made it back to the car at 11:15am.

A long scree-laden trek from just above treeline to the summit ridge. Not nearly as much fun as Harvard (perhaps that goes for the universities as well!) It is easy to lose the route and end up on lots of loose scree and talus on the way up; we found the trail easier to follow on the descent. Although the ascent route that we took worked out just fine we found that the trail to the south of our ascent route appeared easier.

Yikes. Everything Bryan said below is true. It was a lot longer than we thought! I'm always proud of us, though, and how we stick it out. I guess we didn't have a LOT of a choice, though. We could either make it to Columbia and head back down or go BACK to Harvard, which would be as hard, if not harder. So we kept on truckin! I thought the ride down from Columbia was pretty crummy, but I didn't think it was ridiculous. I kind of like sliding down scree. I know I would NOT want to go UP that route! There was a guy with his dog going down with us. The poor dog was NOT happy and his owner had to carry him down half the scree. I felt bad for both of them! I guess I learned that if I bring a dog up a mountain, I should avoid scree-filled slopes! We were hoping to hike out that night but it was getting really late, and it was fun to camp there again anyhow! Can't wait til our next trip to CO so I can add on to my 9 fourteeners!

After making Harvard in just over 3 hours, I was feeling pretty good and wanted to go for Columbia. We started out by following 3 groups. As it turned out, it was like the blind following the blind. The trail was pretty good as it traversed the rabbit ridge. However, a little over half way there the trail ended. You could either start rock climbing the ridge or drop down the scree. We dropped down the steep scree and then had to do some serious boulder hopping. I mean some of these were the size of a car. From there we could head back up the boulders and snow fields, but we chose to head east and intercept the Frenchman Creek route. Not much of a trail there, but we did make the summit some 5 hours after leaving Harvard. Spent just a few minutes on the summit and started heading for the descent route into the Horn Fork basin. The west slopes on Columbia are terrible steep scree and there is no avoiding it. So, I followed the ridge to about 13,700' and then scree surfed all the way to about 12,000'. What a terrible route, I would do Columbia from any other route than this one. Finally, made it back to camp 12 hours later. No packing out tonight....decided to spend one more night at camp.

I traversed over from Harvard. Well, traverse is the wrong word. I climbed down into the upper basin and climbed Columbia from there. I bit lower than I wanted to go at 12,500. Eventually, I made the summit. The hike back down into Horn Fork Basin was terrible loose dirt and scree. Not recommended. If you want to bag Harvard and Columbia I suggest doing them from Frenchman Creek.

I loved Columbia - it climbed quickly and we saw no people on the route we hiked nor on the summit. We got there pretty early (around 10:30 am I think) so others climbing up the other side probably hadn't arrived yet. I would definitely climb this mountain again.

Hiked up into Horn Fork Basin on Friday night. Camped at treeline and climbed Harvard on Saturday and Columbia on Sunday. The scramble up the west slope to the ridge was long & tedious, just like Roach says. Once on the ridge, it's a nice hike, and the summit was quite pleasant. We even got joined on the summit by a marmot. The view back down and across to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc is awesome.

I thought the traverse to Columbia from Harvard was nice. There is a pretty marshy area on the backside of Columbia along this route that I found memorable. I also enjoyed the scree skiing down Columbia's West Slopes Route.

The first time I summited (via the SE Ridge), I didn't have enough time to do Harvard also. Greatly desiring to do both in a day, I made sure that this was accomplished the next time, as I 'rode the Rabbit (Ridge),' traversing across after first climbing Harvard. This day was great fun overall, with the exception of getting sick (perhaps from the altitude, but I'd already summited Harvard (!), so I'm not sure...), and it being really windy. Despite needing to take a break for awhile halfway through, still managed the traverse in 2:26. Took 3:43 to get back to the CO/Main Range & Harvard Lakes TH, via the SE Ridge.